


April 20,1991

by tahirire



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon - Comics, Gen, One Shot, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-03-24
Updated: 2009-03-24
Packaged: 2017-10-26 07:24:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/280347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tahirire/pseuds/tahirire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based off of an early entry from John's journal and events covered in both the Rising Son comics and the Supernatural Anime series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	April 20,1991

Dean sinks down into the leather seat gratefully, trying hard not to shake or cry, because crying is for babies, and Dean isn’t a baby anymore. Dad is talking, telling him something about doing good.

 _Dad took me hunting, and I missed the shot._ Dean looks at his hands, dazed. _I missed the deer._ They have red on them. _I didn’t have my gun. If I’d had my gun I’d have got him._

Dad rummages around the trunk for something. Shovel? Maybe. It makes a loud noise. _Sammy got the deer. Kid’s seven._

Dad’s talking a lot. Dean doesn’t really hear him over the rain. Dean knows it’s raining because there are droplets falling on his hands. They make the red go away. _I never miss with_ my _gun._ It doesn’t usually rain inside the car.

Dad disappears into the dark with a heavy bag slung over his shoulder and a shovel in his hand. _Sammy’s first deer. It’s big. Where’s dad taking it?_

Dean blinks once, twice. He’s tired, and cold. He must be cold because of the rain. He starts shaking then, not because he’s a baby, but because he must be cold.

He runs his fingertips across the ridges of his .32 automatic, the one dad got him last year for his birthday. _Should clean it,_ he thinks. It has red on it. It shouldn’t be in the rain. Dad hates rust.

Gentle fingers touch his cheek. They feel small. “D …Dean?” A shape comes into focus. Something tugs at the collar of his jacket. “ _Dean_ ,” more insistent now, scared. Sammy.

Dean blinks, and his hands in his lap become more focused. He’s dizzy. He was breathing hard.  He holds the gun. His hands are red. He opens his mouth, but he can’t find any words. Maybe dad took them when he left with the man.

“Dean?”

The man. Dad took a shovel from the trunk. Dean’s hands are red. Sammy. “S – Sammy?”

Sammy, he shot the deer, and he’s seven and warm and he wraps his arms around Dean’s waist. Dean pulls his eyes away from his hands, the gun, the red. Wasn’t it raining? His nose is stuffy. Maybe it wasn’t really rain.

Sammy starts to cry and buries his head in Dean’s chest. “ _Dean_ ,” he gasps, reaching with one hand to pull the gun away. Sammy’s small hand drops the .32 to the floorboard and comes up to grab onto his brother. “Th- that man, he –“

Dean’s stomach lurches sharply, and the jolt unlocks the vice around his lungs, letting the words out. “Shh, it’s OK,” he whispers. He wipes his hands on the legs of his jeans, scrubbing the blood off. He can’t touch Sammy until they’re clean.

He wipes his face and dries his tears, feels his breathing slow. He shifts awkwardly in the seat and grabs Sammy, pulling him close. “It’s OK, kiddo,” he whispers into the soft fall of Sammy’s hair, “I took care of it. He’s not coming back, OK? Shh, I gotcha.”

Sammy relaxes a little at the sound of his voice and snuggles closer. Kid’s had a day. _Two days_ , Dean thinks. Yesterday Sammy shot a deer.

Today, Dean killed a hunter.

Dean strokes Sammy’s shoulders until he feels his little brother sag in his arms, falling asleep to the rhythm of Dean’s steady heartbeat.

Dad is out there in the dark with Anderson and a shovel, and Dean is twelve years old, but he won’t cry. He doesn’t need to, because Sammy is safe.

“It’s OK,” Dean says, staring out the window into the dark. “I gotcha.”


End file.
